The Dai ethnic group, residing in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and Dehong Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, China, celebrates a grand and significant festival known as the Water Splashing Festival. This festival is not only the New Year celebration but also the most important traditional festival observed by the Dai nationality in Yunnan Province. It falls roughly between April and May in the Gregorian calendar and usually lasts for 3-5 days.

Water Splashing Festival, Yunnan

Each year, on the morning of the festival, people dressed in beautiful clothes sing, dance, and splash water on each other. Men and women, old and young, take along buckets or basins and converge on the broad streets, where containers of clear water, some scented or with petals floating on top, line the sides. When the festivities begin, participants splash water over their relatives, friends, or acquaintances, wishing them luck and freedom from adversities or diseases.

The ways to splash water can be divided into gentle splashing and violent splashing, depending on the intimacy between the splasher and the target and the target's age. Gentle splashing is done to venerable elders. While doing this, the splasher, speaking blessing words, gently pulls away an elder's collar and tips a ladle of clear water into the opening, which then flows down the elder's back. The elder should willingly accept the splashing and reciprocate the splasher's good wishes with blessings. Violent splashing is done to everyone else except the elders. In this case, the splasher is free to splash water from a gourd ladle, a basin, or a pale over the target, and the target likewise splashes back. The more water one bears, the happier they feel. All participants dance, sing, and laugh heartily while splashing, entirely lost in the pleasure.

Water Splashing Festival celebrations in Jinghong, Yunnan

Some young men even go to bamboo dwellings and splash water over the girls there, as a symbol of love. If a young man receives small decorative pouches from a girl, it means she has fallen in love with him. In this way, the Water Splashing Festival is regarded as the Valentine's Day for the Dai ethnic group.

The festival has become an integral part of Yunnan Province's culture. Nowadays, not only the Dai people but also tourists from all over the world participate in this exhilarating carnival.